CV NEWS FEED // The Italian paper of record Corriere della Sera on Sunday confirmed that Pope Francis used demeaning Italian slang to highlight that openly gay men should not be admitted to Italian seminaries.
According to the story in Il Corriere della Sera, the episode took place during a closed-door meeting with the Italian Bishops’ Conference (known as CEI) gathered in Rome on May 20.
“It was actually a conversation about a very serious issue, which has concerned the CEI for some time: whether and to what extent to admit homosexual candidates for the priesthood into seminaries,” the paper reported.
According to the story, Francis, while reiterating the need to welcome everyone, expressed in colloquial language: “Nei seminari c’è già troppa frociaggine,” literally meaning “there is already too much fa**otry in the seminaries.”
The word “frocio” is very much like the word “fa**ot” in English, since it is both dated and offensive.
“Some bishops explained to Corriere that the pontiff’s outburst was received with some incredulous laughter rather than embarrassment, since Bergoglio’s gaffe was evident,” Il Corriere reported.
“Italian is not his mother tongue. When he was a boy, the family spoke more in Piedmontese (the language of Piedmont, Northern Italy), which is different, and in short it was clear that Francis was not aware of how heavy and offensive the word is in our language,” one bishop explained to the Italian newspaper.
The article also explained the substance of the discussion.
In November, the CEI approved a document regarding admission to seminaries, the Ratio formationis sacerdotalis. The document has not yet been made public and is awaiting confirmation by Francis, but the consensus among the bishops seems to be that there should be a spirit of “greater openness,” even if candidates with “deeply rooted tendencies” should still not be admitted into a seminary.
According to Il Corriere, the bishops were making the point that “even a homosexual can be admitted if he shows that he has made ‘a serious choice’ of chastity.”
It was at this point, however, that Francis “came out with what appears to be a radical ‘no’.”